Top 10 Cook Books For Chefs, Cooks and Food Lovers

Top Ten Cook Books You Should Own

There is a lot of advice I would want to give young cooks.
One of the biggest is read. Read all the books you can on food,
technique and the Best Chefs! It seems odd, shouldn't you spend all your
time in the kitchen if you want to get good at cooking?

You should spend a lot of time in the kitchen to become a great cook or chef.
However, you also need to focus on understanding food and how flavors
operate. Yes, there is some thought that goes into every dish. That is
why I love reference books (which are the two top books on my list). From their, recipes books are great for pictures and inspirations. Even reading a Chef's bibliography is great. You can really put your feet in their shoes and understand their trials and their triumphs.

I
do have one quick rant to make about some recipe books.... I have some
issues with Chef recipe books. Often times, they are unfair to the
end-reader. Try doing anything from Alinea's cook book with no training
or proper equipment. Yeah, it isn't fun! It's like most Chefs slap
together a book, and expect the layman to be able to follow it. It is
like having a UI that requires an instruction
manual to operate it. It just doesn't make sense. Even with companies
like Joule coming along and trying to make home Sous Vide machines. It
really doesn't seem sustainable. Instead, focus on teaching home cooks
how to do your basics. Then show them something cool. I think creating
tiered cook books would be better. With levels..I have a book like that
somewhere. I just can't find it the moment.

All that
aside, the books below are great for anyone. Whether you are planning to
be a Chef, or maybe you are just a home cook. Either way, these books
will help you grow your skills. Some of them will teach you more about
food and what makes it tick. Other books will be for the food porn.
Still others will be to help you understand chef lives. How some of the
greats made it to where they were.

So take a moment and pick up a book!

Reference Books

The
first book I would recommend any aspiring chef, cook even hobbyist is
the flavor bible. It is not a cook book, it is more of a reference book.
It helps develop any bodies understanding of how flavors work with each
other. Don't worry about getting the fanciest cook books with the
freshest techniques. Instead, especially as a cook starting out, your
goal should be to understand food at the lowest levels. Dishes will come
with time and experience. It is more important to understand what
flavors pair well with thyme, paprika, lemons and so on. This book is
great because it is written in such a way that any one can understand.
You don't need any fancy kitchen equipment, or vacuum sealing machine.
Just a few ingredients and time to read. It highlights the best flavor
combinations in bold, and bold and stars for those that are classic,
holy grail level combos. It even has example dishes from restaurants.
Including a blurb from my old kitchen, Cafe Juanita!

Before
we start getting into the cook books, I have one more reference book I
would recommend everybody who wants to be good at cooking get or read is
On Food and Cooking. If you want to understand the science behind
cheese, sweetness, and food in general. This book is amazing. When I
first started at the Herbfarm, the current Sous Chef the time handed me
this book and I couldn't get enough of it. Don't expect any pretty
pictures, only basic diagrams of microbes and fauna here! Like the
previous recommendation, I am a firm believer in understanding something
at its lowest point first and then building from there. That way you
can really make it your own. I say this a lot. However, if you want to
break the rules like a master, learn the rules like a pro. Once you can
wax on and wax off. No one can beat you! Not that this is a competition
or anything.

Recipe Books and More

This
is by far my favorite recipe book. When I worked at the Herbfarm and
did a lot of the pastry, I would pour through this book. The pictures
are fantastic, and the recipes are great. Now that is a rare find. I do
often find it is a trade off, good pictures,
bad recipes or the other way around. This one is fabulous. Jut look at
the picture on the front cover, this dessert is so simple, but is so
delicious. Each page has pictures and recipes like that. Most of which
are doable at home. Ducasse really had a way with desserts, and food in
general. This book is worth every penny if I was rich...

Nothing
in this book really should challenge a home cook. The difference
between what a chef and a home cook would make in the end is purely
technique. The chefs would just have a better executed product, or we
have a problem. So don't think you can't do these recipes. I believe in
you.

If anyone needs any present ideas out there for me, just saying.

I
am not sure if the price is accurate on Amazon.com!!! It was putting it
close to 900-1000 USD. I find that so hard to believe. However, I never
had to pay for it..

For
the most part, I tend to dislike modern Chef recipe books. They often
have impossible techniques for home cooks to try and it is not always a
skill thing. Sometimes it is a equipment problem, a miscommunication in
the recipe, maybe even just getting an ingredient. Cooking out of a Chef
cook book is like any "Expectations vs. reality meme ever(Don't even
get me started on Alinea's Cook book). Manresa was probably one of the
better cook books that a home cook has some chance of scaling. If
anything...the pictures are beautiful. The fossilized vegetables is a
pretty cool dish. I have even followed some forums that have home cooks
talking about making this specific dish. It does require pickling lime
(if you don't want to pay for Manresa's Calx which is super expensive).
This particular dish has you slow roast root veg that have been soaked
in a pickling lime solution. In the end, it creates a petrified look and
shell on the outside and a super soft inside. More than a little cool
for a cook book. Again, if anything the pictures are great.

I
am a little bit of a history nerd. Not necessarily do I know everything
about history. However, I love knowing how concepts, movements, etc,
got from point A to point B. One such movement is the slow food
movement. This book was written by one of the Chefs that has played a
large role in this movement. She came along much after the inception.
Nevertheless, you can't here about Berkley or American slow food without
Alice Waters coming into the conversation. She just has such a simple
and beautiful way about food. There is no fuss or muss. She just makes
good food. Alice Waters in not necessarily the first person to do it,
and every country has had it's own start. In fact, I got to meet a lady
very closely intertwined with the Beirut Slow Food Movement. It is
however, a great bit of history to read into!

Personally,
this book is more for the Food Porn. All the pictures in here are
gorgeous and the recipes are great. Honestly, you should just keep this
book in your house for a slow day. Get a nice warm cup of coffee and
spend hours glancing at the pure beauty of the food Tartine puts out
(Although, I wish they had more pictures!). They are beyond just "Solid
Technique". If you never even cook anything out of this book, you will
still be glad you bought it. Just the few pictures from the front I
think tell you it all. There is a lot of technique in this book. You
might want to youtube a few things before you bake away. Nevertheless.
Go at it!

Alright,
not all these books are here for the recipes. This book's concept
involves 50 top chefs and an interviewer. They went around and asked
what they would eat for their last meal. Then the Chef would respond,
give his or her reasoning why and add in the recipe. The recipes are
good, but just that. Here, it is more about understanding great chefs.
Getting a little bit of history. If you are just coming through the
ranks, it is a great read. For some of you, the book will resonate
greatly. You will feel like these chefs you will recall their stories as
if they were your own. That is why I recommend this book for any cook
and just any curious mind. Why not see what great chefs are thinking?
Why not see that they are just like you and me. Some of them just want
their mothers cooking, or some simple dish before they die. They don't
often want a 10 course meal with foie and truffle. In the end, we are
all human and nothing bring us closer to it than simple home food.

In
one of my posts I talk about understanding the history of the culinary
world. Now, in no way does it start with Marco Pier White, or end there.
I also don't think anyone wants to read Escoffier in the original
French. So here is a great look into the culinary mind that is Marco
Pier white. Say what you want about him, he is a sell out or this or
that. He earned his way up through the ranks and is probably ten times
the chef any of us cooks will ever be. So take a moment and see how
Marco Pier White, the bad boy chef got 3 michellin stars so young. Maybe
you have seen a video of him recently when he is older. His young side
was even more brash and fully of fire. You should try you tubing a few
clips!

I
said I am not a fan of modern Chef cook books. I never said anything
about some of the olderish one's. I am going to yell this from the
mountain tops and make five more lists that scream this into you. Technique!
It is all about technique and understanding food. If you can't properly
truss a chicken, break down a salmon or sear a steak. Why are you a
cook? Cooking sous vide is great, it makes life so easy. But where is
the love? Not to be corny or anything. Isn't there something sensual
about cooking? The heat, fire, flame? If you take it away, why even
cook?

This book will take you back, you will be
reading some techniques you may never have even heard of and maybe you
should never make! Still, understand it, and use it for your experiences
ahead.

Finally,
some books are just for fun. Alton Brown is a great American and Food
icon. His show, Good Eats has probably been around longer than most of
us have been around. This book is a great combination of humor and food,
science and gastronomy. If you haven't figured it out yet. I am a huge
nerd. These are the books that get my gears going. You can buy all the
recipe books you want. Just memorizing a bunch of recipes will do you no
good. What happens when you get something you have never seen before?
Well, if you have used books like The Flavor Bible, I am Just Here for the Food and On Food and Cooking you can think "Oh this is like" or "this tastes like". From there it is just putting together new pieces.

These
were just my favorite books. Are you a chef out there. Maybe a home
cook. What books are part of your collection. What cook books would you
give to a new young cook. Let me know! Not only for other young cooks,
but I love learning. So maybe I haven't even heard of your cook book. I
already had one person send me a vegetarian cook book. I didn't have any
in my list...which makes sense to me. However, I would now like to go
look up the book. Maybe it is worth reading. How would I know unless I
read it.